


Just The Way You Are

by BlackCherrySeltzer



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Valentines Day!!, It's yuricoco and tbh are you really surprised lmao, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), no beta still letting glenn die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:42:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29436996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCherrySeltzer/pseuds/BlackCherrySeltzer
Summary: Falling asleep more often and in random places, Constance causes concern among her peers. Yuri, despite all the work he needs to do around Abyss, can’t stop worrying over her and decides to investigate what’s causing her fatigue.
Relationships: Yuris Leclair | Yuri Leclerc/Constance von Nuvelle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Just The Way You Are

Constance twirled about, dancing around a field of multicolored carnations enjoying another warm spring day in Nuvelle. No more war to worry about, and her land was finally restored back to its former glory. She bent over to observe a butterfly drinking nectar from a particularly bright yellow flower.

“I see you too are enjoying the bounties of my land! And you have _me_ to thank for that!” She laughed as the butterfly flew off.

_“Constance.”_

She ran up the flowery hill, flopping down into a bed of flowers. Constance closed her eyes lying on the soft petals, contently basking in the sun. 

There was nothing else she enjoyed more than breathing in the light scent of flowers on a day such as this. She was so incredibly happy to have all that she wanted and more. As she lied there, she heard footsteps approach her that unmistakably belonged to her husband. She felt him lie down next to her and take hold of her hand. “You’re finally back… Just in time to see the flowers in bloom too,” she remarked to him. Constance sat up, plucking a nearby flower and turned to give it to him but he had disappeared from her side. She looked around in a panic as suddenly all the flowers around her withered away. The sun’s rays felt like flames on her skin. The lush fields turned into cracked dried ground. 

_“Hey, Constance.”_

“My darkest fears have come true, of course this was only a temporary gain…” she lamented. Everything she had was immediately lost as flames engulfed her surroundings. The ground around her cracked open exposing a dark world underneath. “This all ends with me, it was always written this way, I know I shall—”

“Constance would you wake up! I don’t even know how you manage to fall asleep in here,” Yuri chided her. She bolted up from the library desk suddenly jarred out of her deep slumber.

“Honestly, Yuri, do you not know any proper way to wake a person other than screaming into their ears?” Constance grumbled from her rude awakening.

“I wouldn’t have to do this if you slept in a bed like a normal person,” Yuri quipped back, casually putting the library books she had on the table back on the empty shelf next to her. “Or is it that these piles of books are more comfortable than your bed? You know I told you before that you’re always welcomed to join me in my bed now that we have our little future arrangement all settled. I can guarantee you it’s quite comfortable,” he turned and winked at her.

She huffed and turned away from him, hiding a blush. Constance still couldn’t quite believe Yuri was going to stay by her side after the war ends. Of course, she knows this is all for him to just get a proper home and name to himself at the end of the day, but whenever he says intimate things like this, it suddenly feels more than that to her. 

“Why are you even studying so much anyway? You know we aren’t students anymore.”

“Of course I know that! But just because our circumstances have changed doesn’t mean I should stop advancing myself, hm? You know some magic, don’t you? Why don’t you try expanding your own skills?” she said with a smile handing him a dense book. Yuri paused looking it over with a disgruntled sigh before reshelving it. He pretended to be disinterested, but truth be told, he honestly couldn’t even begin to understand the advance magical glyphs on it. The language was too technical for him to understand.

“I think I’ll leave that area of expertise up to you. Anyway, I woke you up because the war preparation session is about to start in ten minutes, so why don’t you—”

“What?! Ten minutes?! Why didn’t you start with that?!” Constance said panicked. She’d never want to tarnish her name by being known for tardiness. In a flurry of movements she threw the rest of her books back on to the shelf and ran out of the library, leaving Yuri in the dust.

“I’ll see you over there!” she yelled to him from the hall.

“Never a dull moment when you’re around her that’s for sure,” Yuri sighed to himself and left to join her.

***

“The armor for the horses will need to be replaced before our next battle. Who here wants to take on this task?” Byleth asked as she led the daily war preparation session. 

“I’ll gladly help out with that, Professor!” Ingrid chimed in before anyone else could.

“Great! Moving on to the next matter at hand…”

The professor’s words droned on as Constance felt a wave of fatigue roll over her. _“Focus, Constance, focus,”_ she thought to herself sitting up in her seat. 

“When it comes to strategic formations, we need to focus on putting a mix of our armored units and cavalry in the front and leave healers in the back.”

 _“Maybe no one will notice if I close my eyes for just a second.”_ Constance thought feeling her eyelids getting heavier by the second.

“So then when the enemy approaches…Sylvain and Felix I want you to… then we should…” The professor’s words blurred together as Constance fell asleep at the table still sitting upright. 

Yuri jotted down notes in his small notebook, half listening to the professor. His thoughts were more focused on the things he needed to ensure were done for Abyss’s safety before heading out to battle. Leaning back in his seat, he looked across the room where Hapi and Balthus sat. Hapi whispered something to Balthus and both of them snickered silently, not catching anyone else’s attention but Yuri’s. Yuri met Hapi’s eyes and raised an eyebrow in confusion. Hapi subtly nodded her head to indicate to Constance who had fallen asleep next to him. Yuri looked over and also stifled a laugh. Constance was quite the comedic sight to see, sitting fully upright, quill in hand, yet fast asleep.

Under the desk, he bumped his knee against her’s to wake her up. She jolted in her seat, launching the quill she had in her hands across the room. Hapi, Balthus, and Yuri all snickered as Constance turned red with embarrassment. A few others stared at them and Byleth momentarily paused to look over at the commotion which quickly died down at her glare. 

“Nice one, Shady Lady,” Yuri whispered to her. She glared back at him and took his quill out of his hands to replace the one she threw.

“I believe we are all aligned now, thank you all once again for your cooperation. Gilbert, do you mind staying behind? I have a few items to discuss with you,” Byleth closed her book adjourning the meeting. The crowd of former students all got up and chatted with each other as they left to go about the rest of their days.

“Waking you up twice in one day, huh? I should start charging you for my wake-up services,” Yuri winked at Constance, stopping her in the hall before heading back to Abyss.

Constance scoffed at him, “This was just merely a fluke in my circadian rhythm, I am sure. It will regulate itself once again by tomorrow. I will make sure this mishap will not happen again!” She brushed him off continuing to walk forward.

Yuri let her run off, watching her engage with a brief chat with Mercedes and then bounding towards the the library. He took out his notebook and reviewed his laundry list of tasks for the day. _“I should probably meet with the Abyss gatekeeper first so he can prepare while I’m still here. Then the weapons need to be—”_ His thoughts were abruptly cut off as a concerned Mercedes stood in front of him, looking like she wanted to talk, but worried she was interrupting him. 

“Um, Yuri? Do you happen to have a moment?” she asked in her soft tone. 

“Of course, what’s on your mind?” He gave her a warm smile closing his notebook.

“Well, you are close to Constance, aren’t you? Have you two been… doing more activities together?” Mercedes said, seeming to be careful with her word choice. “I mean, have you two been dining with each other more together lately?” she questioned with a hesitant smile. Yuri blushed for a moment. Did Constance already tell her about their post-war plans? He knew they were close, almost like sisters, but Constance didn’t seem like she wanted to boast this information around quite yet.

“…Not recently, no. I believe the last time I ate with her was probably a month or so ago when we had some… future matters to discuss,” he thought back, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, is that so… I was hoping you’d say otherwise…” Mercedes frowned. “You see, Constance has turned away any offer I’ve made to dine together and I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen her in the dining hall at all lately. I thought that maybe she was taking her meals down in Abyss, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case…” 

“I see, you’re worried she’s not eating properly, aren’t you?” He put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. She really was like an older sister to Constance, always watching out for her. Part of him felt ashamed that he hadn’t noticed before her.

“I am… She’s really ramped up her studies and experiments recently too and I’m not sure what changed in her so suddenly, but I think it might be connected to her skipping meals…” Mercedes sighed. “She won’t tell me anything that’s she’s doing, but she really does seem to trust you. I was wondering if you could talk to her?” 

“Thanks for letting me know all this, I’ll be sure to grab a moment with her today,” he gave her another warm smile.

“Thank you, Yuri. You really are a kinder man than the rumors make you out to be, ” Mercedes said giving him a hug. “I can see why Constance is so keen with you,” she giggled covering her smile. “Anyway, I have something I need to talk to Annie about. Thank you again, Yuri!” She gave him one more hug and left down the hall to catch up with the red-head.

Yuri pulled out his notebook and jotted down a reminder to talk to Constance about this later. Constance still seemed tired, so he’d figure he’d give her a break before interrogating her. Walking back down to Abyss, his brow furrowed thinking about what Constance could possibly be up to that’s causing her so much fatigue and loss of appetite. She was always staying up late with her nose in some book for as long as Yuri knew her, nothing off there. So why is it impacting her health like this so suddenly? 

She seemed perfectly fine when last they ate together. He thought back to that meal, Yuri actually prepared it himself. After Constance ran off when he proposed to join her house after it’s reformed, he caught up with her to make arrangements to properly discuss their joint venture over the meal he made. While he did enjoy seeing her so flustered, he needed her to know he was quite serious when he said he wanted to join her house. And in all honesty, he wanted to let her know he was quite serious about her too.

Yuri stopped near the entrance gates to talk to the Abyss gatekeeper about how long he was going to be out of Abyss and the coverage needed in his absence. 

“Thanks, Yuri. I’ll be sure all of that gets taken care of. While you’re here, I have something to report. The young sorceress who lives here, Constance? I’ve noticed her leaving here a lot more often during the day. Not that I think she’s up to anything too cynical, besides I’m sure you would have caught her before me if she was. But I just never really saw her leave this much before. Seems strange.”

“That is interesting. Anything else you notice about her?”

“I mean, she gets in pretty late and usually just immediately heads into the Shadow Library rather than her quarters, but that doesn’t seem to odd to me. I’d say she’s probably one of the few Abyssians who actually uses the library. But she does seem pretty drained whenever she comes back from the surface. Usually she nags me about needing to act more proper around her, but I’ve barely heard a peep out of her in the past month. I don’t really mind that though,” he smiled to himself.

“Hm, well thanks for letting me know. Please keep an eye out on her, I’ll see what she’s up to as well,” Yuri said with a wave as he walked down to the Abyssian classroom.

He sat down at the front desk and opened his notebook to review everything else that he needed to do before their upcoming battle. _“Fix the weapons for his battalion, check food supplies for the residents of Abyss, enhance security around the back gates, …”_ his eyes flicked through the rest of his list until he came to the last bullet, _“Check on Constance.”_

He sat there staring at the words, pondering just what she could be up to. And for her to fall asleep during a war meeting too… Mercedes was even worried about her. But she didn’t seem ill when he was talking to her earlier. Yuri sighed and laughed to himself, _“Heh, you’re already giving me a taste of what it’s going to be like married to you, huh Shady Lady?”_ he thought to himself, _“Always worrying over you, but I guess that’s not any different than it was before.”_

Yuri shut his notebook and stood up from his desk, “I suppose these other tasks can wait until later. Constance, you just better not be up to something reckless…” he said to himself as he made his way out of Abyss.

He walked all the way back up to the second floor of the monastery and slowly crept into the library. He knew from her state before that she’d probably be asleep in her books once again. Peering into the empty room, he saw a sleeping figure draped under a blanket sitting at the back desk surrounded by books. One of the guards must of felt bad for her and put a blanket on her. Yuri made his way over to the desk and pulled the blanket off in one quick movement. “Okay Constance, we need to talk. Why are you— Linhardt?”

“Excuse you, you're interrupting my afternoon nap,” Linhardt cut him off tugging the blanket back.

“Uh, sorry I thought you were someone else,” Yuri said handing back the blanket embarrassed at his mix up.

“Are you looking for Constance?” Linhardt yawned. “She was reading something from those books over there but left in a hurry around noon. She’ll probably be back considering she left her books out. I’m definitely not putting them away for her if she doesn’t though, that’s for sure.” Linhardt indicated to the table a few rows down.

“Now if you excuse me, I have some very important naps to be taking.” Linhardt once again wrapped himself up in the blanket.

Yuri walked over to the table Constance was studying at. There were numbered vials of a light blue liquid near some notes she took about how long the effects of its contents lasted. All of them had the same word next to their notes in large letters: “FAILURE.” 

“What the hell is this?” Yuri muttered to himself picking up a vial. He investigated the scene trying to figure out what she was concocting. One of the larger old tomes was open to a page on the sun. A lot of the terminology was a bit beyond him; it went into the science about how the sun’s rays could harm the skin if exposed too long. Yuri flipped a few more pages into the book and stopped where he saw Constance had flagged the section titled remedies. There was a remedy which Constance had marked that stated that positive effects have been seen with people who drank a mixture of Noa fruit juice, powdered wyvern scales, and honey from a deadly bee variant found in Faerghus. Underneath it, however, it warned that prolonged use could cause extreme fatigue, headaches, and loss of appetite and it should be use sparingly.

“Hmm, I think I see what she’s been up to…” Yuri mumbled, “Hey Linhardt, did Constance happen to say where she was going?”

“Mmm…I think she mentioned something about the courtyard…” Linhardt trailed off as he started to doze.

“Always keeping me on my toes, aren’t you Shady Lady…” Yuri shook his head, cleaned up the mess Constance had left behind on the desk, and headed out to the courtyard.

It was quite a sunny day out. Yuri saw a group of knights that had decided to take a break for tea in the courtyard to enjoy the day as though there wasn’t a war going on just outside Garreg Mach’s walls. Walking past the group, he heard a pair of knights complaining about moving their tea spot because “some gloomy girl is just standing staring vacantly at nothing” in their usual location. Must be getting close.

Yuri turned the corner scanning the courtyard to look for Constance. He honestly wouldn’t have seen her if he wasn’t searching for her. Around the corner, hidden away by a few bushes, he managed to make out her long blond curls through its leaves. Yuri made his way past the bushes to the secluded area of the courtyard.

“Hey, there you are, Shady Lady,” he said trying to get her attention but she continued staring out towards the bushes.

“…Doing some experiments out here?” He looked up at the sun covering his eyes with his hand, “Pretty sunny out today, huh? Why don’t we get you back inside, alright?” 

Yuri reached over to grab her hand when she still didn’t respond, but she pulled it away and moved back from him.

“I give you my truest apologies for that display of rudeness, however, I cannot oblige your request to go indoors quite yet…” Constance lamented. “I know my current state in the sunlight can be a hinderance to those around me, so I have been researching ways to rid myself of this folly. But as you can see, my ignorance of the causes to my condition has prevented me from finding a solution. I must continue to experiment so that I am no longer a burden to you…”

“What? That’s ridiculous. You’re doing your body more harm than good standing out here and drinking that concoction I saw you made. Constance, you know I don’t think you’re a burden, why would you think that way?”

“Perhaps now, you do not realize how much I hold you back. But for you to join my house and spend the rest of your days with someone of the likes of myself? You deserve a partner free from hindering traits such as my own. So please, if you will pardon me, I must continue testing my potions,” Constance sighed reaching into her satchel to pull out her notebook and a vial of the blue solution she had made in the library.

Yuri caught her before she could drink the solution and softly took her notes and potion from her hands. Constance opened her mouth to protest, but before she could, Yuri pulled her in to hold her.

“Constance, you are in no way, and will never be a burden to me. Sure, you do have a tendency to play with my nerves, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he grinned down at her. She frowned and looked away, but he put his hand under her chin and held her head up to look at him. “Please stop all this potion nonsense, okay?,” he said softly looking into her deep blue eyes. “You don’t need to change yourself for my sake. I love you just as you are.” Yuri placed a soft kiss on her forehead. Constance stared up at him wide-eyed.

“Y-you love me?” Constance said, barely above a whisper.

Yuri laughed quietly at her shock, “Ah, I suppose I’ve never said that aloud to you, hm? But did you ever really doubt my love for you?”

“…Are you quite certain that you love…me?” Constance asked again averting her eyes. Yuri sighed smiling at the gloomy woman in front of him.

"Yes, Constance, I am sure. I love you, and I always will.” Yuri kissed her with his last remark holding her close to him. She broke away after a moment, looking up at him. And to Yuri’s surprise, he saw her do something he never seen in all the years of knowing her. She smiled in the sunlight. A true, genuine, warm smile.

“I love you too, Yuri.”

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day!! I had a plan to write several FE3H first "I love you" stories for Valentine's Day, but life got in the way... 😓
> 
> But I am happy that I was at least able to finish this little YuriCoco piece in time! Hope you all enjoy it! 💕


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